Title: The Caves of Steel
First Published: 1954
Synopsis:
(from the Bantam edition's back cover)
Like most people left behind on an overpopulated Earth, New York
City police detective Elijah Baley had little love for either the arrogant Spacers or
their robotic companions. But when a prominent Spacer is murdered under mysterious
circumstances, Baley is ordered to the Outer Worlds to help track down the killer.
The relationship between Lije and his Spacer superiors, who distrusted all Earthmen was
strained from the start. Then he learned that they had assigned him a partner: R. Daneel
Olivaw. Worst of all was that "R" stood for robot - and his positronic partner
was made in the image and likeness of the murder victim!
Title: The Naked Sun
First Published: 1957
Synopsis:
(from the Bantam edition's back cover)
On the beautiful Outer World planet of Solaria, a handful of human colonists lead a hermitlike existence, their every need attented to by their faithful robot servants. To this strange and provocative planet comes Detective Elijah Baley, sent form the streets of New York with his positronic partner, the Robot R. Daneel Olivaw, to solve an incredible murder that has rocked Solaria to its foundations.
The victim had been so reclusive that he appeared to his associates only through holographic projection. Yet someone had gotten close enough to bludgeon him to death while his robots looked on. Now Baley and Olivaw are faced with two clear impossibilities: Either the Solarian was killed by one of his robots - unthinkable under the Laws of Robotics - or he was killed by the woman who loved him so much that she never came into his presence!
Title: The Robots of Dawn
First Published: 1983
Synopsis:
(from the Bantam's edition back cover)
Detective Elijah Baley is called to the Spacer World Aurora to solve a bizarre case of roboticide. The prime suspect is a gifted roboticist who had the means, the motive, and the opportunity to commit the crime. There's only one catch: Baley and his positronic partner, R. Daneel Olivaw, must prove the man innocent. For in a case of political intrigue and love between woman and robot gone tragically wrong, there's more at stake than simple justice. This time Baley's career, his life, and Earth's right to pioneer the Galaxy lie in the delicate balance.
Title: Robots and Empire
First Published: 1985
Currently out of print
Synopsis:
(from Amazon.com)
Long after his humiliating defeat at the hands of Earthman Elijah
Baley, Kelden Amadiro embarked
on a plan to destroy planet Earth. But even after his death, Baley's vision continued to
guide his robot partner, R. Daneel Olivaw, who had the wisdom of a great man behind him
and an indestructible will to win....
Title: The Currents of Space
First Published: 1952
Currently out of print
Synopsis:
(translation of the Presses Pocket french edition)
They found him naked, amnesic, and babling nonsense, but the
guards weren't interested. They filed no report.
People started calling him Rik and Lona the peasant took care of him. After taking his
first steps, he started remembering... Everyone will die. Everyone on Florina. The planet
already has multiple problems. The populace would like to get rid of the Sarkites who
colonized them. But should they ask Trantor for help and only swap tyrants? Rik didn't
forget that he was analyzing the Void. Lona doesn't understand: Rik seems to remember
something important. Exactly what are the currents of space?
Title: The Stars, Like Dust
First Published: 1951 or 1952
Currently out of print
Synopsis:
(translation of the J'ai Lu french edition)
In the declining Galactic Empire, the despots on Tyrann rule over many worlds, including Earth. Biron Farrill, son to one of their major opponents, barely flees Earth with his life. Helped by his old master Sander Jonti and the beautiful Artemisia, he makes it to Lingane, were rebels are organizing resistance against Tyrann. There, he discovers that the rebels' leader and the man who tried to kill him are one and the same: Sander Jonti. How will he differenciate ally and enemy? Will he be able to stay alive and avenge his father by eliminating the masters of Tyrann?
Title: Pebble in the Sky
First Published: 1950
Currently out of print
Synopsis:
(translation of the J'ai Lu french edition)
It happened while his foot was in the air. Joseph Schwartz was in a small Chicago suburb and wanted to step over a chiffon doll. Setting his foot back on the ground, he found himself in a forest. He didn't know, however, that he had made a gigantic leap through time. Earth now was a small backwater planet in a Galactic Empire ruled from Trantor. But how will the presence of a man from the past modify the relationship between the Terrans and the Imperials?
Title: Foundation
First Published: 1951
Synopsis:
(from the Bantam edition's back cover)
For twelve thousand years the Galactic Empire had ruled supreme. Now it was dying. But only Hari Seldon, creator of the revolutionnary science of psychohistory, could see into the future - a dark age of ignorance, barbarism, and warfare that would last thirty thousand years. To preserve knowledge and save mankind, Seldon gathered the best mind in the Empire - both scientists and scholars - and brought them to a bleak planet at the edge of the Galaxy to serve as a beacon of hope for future generations. He called his sanctuary the Foundation.
But soon the fledgling Foundation found itself at the mercy of corrupt warlords rising in the wake of the receding Empire. Mankind's last best hope was faced with an agonizing choice: Submit to the barbarians and be overrun - or fight them and be destroyed.
Title: Foundation and Empire
First published: 1952
Synopsis:
(from the Del Rey edition's back cover)
When the Galactic Empire began dying, the great pyschohistorian
Hari Seldon set up the Foundation to perserve human culture and shorten 30,000 years of
chaotic barbarism to a mere millennium. Located on a bleak world at the edge of the
galaxy, it seemed helpless before the greed of neighboring warlords. But somehow, by
science and wit, it had survived and even gained control of a small federation of planets.
Yet it was still small. And against it stood the greatest power of all - the huge power of
the Empire, mighty even in decay. When an ambitious general turned an Imperial fleet
toward the Foundation, the only hope lay in the prophecies of Hari Seldon.
But even Seldon could not predict the birth and mutant talent of the Mule - one small man with power greater than a dozen battlefleets.
Between big and little, the Foundation seemed doomed.
Title: Second Foundation
First published: 1953
Synopsis:
(from the Del Rey edition's back cover)
When the great Galactic Empire died, the great psychohistorian Hari Seldon set up the Foundation to preserve knowledge and lead men to a new empire after a thousand years. Now Seldon's plan seemed ended - ruined by the mutant power of the Mule.
But there was a Second Foundation "at the other end of the galaxy", set up to protect the plan. The Mule had failed to find it the first time, but now he was sure he saw where it lay.
The men of the Foundation also sought its location. Some of their finest minds were being dominated - and not by the Mule. They sought the Second Foundation to prevent its taking them over.
They saw only one place where it could be. And young Arkady Darrell, fourteen years old and desperate with fear, knew she had discovered the terrible secret.
Or had she?
Title: Foundation's Edge
First published: 1982
Synopsis:
(from the Del Rey edition's back cover)
Hari Seldon, the great psychohistorian, set up the Foundation to bypass a millennia of barbarism and bring about a Second Empire in a mere thousand years. Now, 498 years after its founding, the Foundation seemed to be following the Seldon Plan perfectly.
Too perfectly, Golan Trevize was sure. Such perfection was impossible after the unpredictable disaster of the Mule - unless the supposedly destroyed Second Foundation was still controlling humanity. But his attempts to warn others had led only to his exile in space.
Stor Gendibal of the Second Foundation was also worried by that perfection and suspected tampering by an even greater power. Now he, too, had been sent into space to trace the strange mission of Trevize. Behind both came the warships of the Foundation, risking holocaust to utilize whatever Trevize had found.
He had found an impossible planet - with even more impossible powers. Events had gone far beyond the Seldon Plan. And only Trevize could save the Plan - or destroy it forever!
Title: Foundation and Earth
First published: 1986
Currently out of print
Synopsis:
(from Amazon.com)
Golan Trevize, former Councilman of the First Foundation, searches
for the lost planet, Earth, in
hopes of finding the answer for future galactic development.
Title: Prelude to Foundation
First published: 1988
Synopsis:
(from the Bantam edition's back cover)
It is the year 12,020 G.E. and Emperor Cleon I sits uneasily on the Imperial throne of Trantor. Here in the great multidomed capital of the Galactic Empire, forty billion people have created a civilization of unimaginable technological and cultural complexity. Yet Cleon knows there are those who would see him fall - those whom he would destroy if only he could read the future.
Hari Seldon has come to Trantor to deliver his paper on psychohistory, his remarkable theory of prediction. Little does the young Outworld mathematician know that he has already sealed his fate and the fate of humanity. For Hari possesses the prophetic power that makes him the most wanted man in the Empire... the man who hold the key to the future - an apocalyptic power to be known forever after as the Foundation.
Title: Forward the Foundation
First published: 1993
Synopsis:
(from the Bantam edition's back cover)
As Hari Seldon struggles to perfect his revolutionnary theory of psychohistory and ensure a place for humanity among the stars, the great Galactic Empire totters on the brink of apocalyptic collapse. Caught in the maelstrom are Seldon and all he holds dear, pawns in the struggle for dominance. Whoever can control Seldon will control psychohistory - and with it the future of the Galaxy.
Among those seeking ot turn psychohsitory into the greatest weapon known to man are a populist demagogue, the weak-willed Emperor Cleon I, and a ruthless militaristic general. In his last act of service to humankind, Hari Seldon must somehow save his life's work from their grasp as he searches for its true heirs - a search that begins with his own granddaughter and the dream of a new Foundation.